Blackouts

Wall Street Journal Headlines

South Africa faces bleak new assessments of its ability to repay its national debt later Friday as the risk of widespread electrical blackouts threaten to hobble an economy already falling behind the rapid growth of many poorer countries on the continent.

Already facing a plunging currency and an armed conflict, Ukrainians are now enduring electricity blackouts after a fault knocked out a generator at a nuclear-power station and other plants ran low on coal.

A proposed federal rule to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. power plants will weaken the nation’s power grid and could even cause blackouts, say some of the officials who run the electric network.

Brazil’s epic drought, which has inflicted blackouts, withered crops and left millions short of drinking water, now is threatening the country’s most beloved institution: the riotous annual street festival known as Carnival.

Federal regulators are expected to vote to scrap the agency's 40-year-old rules preventing cable and satellite providers from showing NFL games that have been blacked out in their home markets due to low attendance.